You might not think that the king of shock rock and Syd Barrett had much in common, but that's not the case. When the ALICE COOPER band was still making their name in Los Angeles in the late '60s, they were the house band at the Cheetah Club, where they met the original members of PINK FLOYD, who were in town to play a couple of shows there. In fact, the FLOYD guys ran out of money and moved into the house where Alice and his bandmates lived, and the two groups hung out a lot.

Cooper told TheRockRadio.com that he and Barrett shared "a moment" of sorts one day over breakfast. "Syd was sitting there at the table, and the box of cereal was between us," he said. "And he was watching the box of cereal the way that I would watch 'Star Trek' on television. He was seeing something I wasn't seeing. I don't know what he was on, but he could have sat there all day, staring into that cereal, and he would have been just as happy as anybody else."

Cooper also told TheRockRadio.com that he knew something was really wrong with Barrett at one of the gigs: "I remember the one night ? and in fact, I mentioned this to (PINK FLOYD singer-bassist) Roger Waters, and he says, 'That was the night we knew Syd was in a lot of trouble mentally' ? during their first song, he hits a chord, and he gets a shock, and then he just stops playing. The rest of the set, he just stands there and stares, for about an hour-and-a-half. Never played another note ? just stood there and stared. And the band just played."

I new the bands had met, shared dinner at different stages. There is a good story about the bands in one of the books about Barrett and Cooper. There was a joke about whom was on more drugs, Barrett or members on Alice Coopers group.

Thanks...last year I conducted interviews with both drummer Neal Smith and guitarist Michael Bruce of the original Cooper group, and here are their recollections of that period as well :

RNRU : During that time, during their first tour of the U.S., Pink Floyd stayed at your home as well?

Neal Smith : That was in Santa Monica. I don't remember them staying there, but Dennis said that they stayed at the house. They came over after the show. I had actually gone on the Internet and I found their whole tour then, and they weren't spending that much time in Los Angeles. They may have worked out of L.A., they did American Bandstand, The Dean Martin Show, a couple shows like that, they were doing a lot of playing. I remember they partied after the show at The Cheetah that I went to see them at. But other than that, I don't remember seeing them that much. Les Braden, who was their roadie, ended up staying with us. He was our first addition to the crew after I was in the band.

RNRU : Did you ever meet Syd? What were your impressions of him?

Neal Smith : Oh yeah, he was totally fucked up. He had no clue what planet he was on. He was totally, totally wrecked. You couldn't have a conversation with him. It was tragic. Because I was very aware of 'Piper At The Gates Of Dawn,' and I liked it a lot. It was very different from Jimi Hendrix and The Who, who I loved. But there was something about it that had its own energy, creativeness and insanity, which I found appealing. Actually, the later Pink Floyd I really didn't care too much for but I liked the early stuff.

RNRU : Did you ever get a chance to meet and talk with Syd?

Michael Bruce : He'd just kind of look at you with this glassy look, what do they call that? The Thorazine shuffle. He was very sweet, polite and charming. Very nice, he didn't really talk a lot, but they were all just happy to be over here, and we just loved 'The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.' I listen back to it, and it's just so psychedelic that I can't believe it. "Interstellar Overdrive," the recording is just so crystal clear and clean, again light years ahead of the American recordings of that time. It's amazing that we won the war. (Laughs)

When I was a child I used to stare at things like that, it's like some image you see triggers the wheels in your brain and you get absorted in the little details and how these details relate to other ideas that are popping in your head, and you lose track of time. But as you grow you start to lose that abililty, or tendency if you like. It's like some kind of trance. I used to wake up early in the morning for school, get a shower and then wrapped with the towel around me I would sit in my bed and stare at the floor for minutes, 10 or 15 minutes! To this day my sister always tells me that she used to find that kinda spooky (and don't even mention to her the sleepwalking thing! )

I guess Syd's brain could have work closer to a child's brain than an adult's one, not talking about his personality but about how the neurons and lobes actually work, with more activity on different parts. As we grow our brain becomes lazier and lazier and always finds shorcuts and well traveled neural highways. Child's brains are always on detours.